A Word From the Brewer

Here’s the beginnging of a series of blogs about what’s happening at Zerodegrees Bristol, and more specifically in the brewery.

Two new specialist beers are now on tap: Springtime IPA, which is a big hoppy IPA at 6.4%, with massive hop flavours. San Francisco Lager is a Steam Beer – it’s light amber in colour, has a slight fruity flavour, due to the strain of yeast used during the fermentation. And a pretty high carbonation completes this seasonal brew.

On Wednesday I brewed a new special that should go on tap in around 6 weeks: Pacific Tide. A very light lager brewed with barley and maize, low in ABV (around 4.6%) with hints of Sauvignon Blanc coming from the hops used – the world famous Nelson Sauvin from New Zealand. In about ten days’ time the fermentation should be finished and it’s going to be time for maturation with another addition of even more Nelson Sauvin in the fermenter. You can’t get bored of Nelson Sauvin, it’s one of my favourite hops!

It’s also time to dryhop the Pale Ale. Dryhopping is a technique that adds aroma and flavour to the beer, without adding bitterness. Hops are added to the fermented beer and left for a week to infuse, before being removed. All the hop oils will go straight into the beer.

In Bristol, spring has finally arrived. There have been some very sunny days and obviously the 2 terraces got very busy.

Made in Bristol came to visit us recently to produce a feature about the history of the building, the beers and the brewing process. That was quite fun to do, and it got live on TV but if you missed it, check out the replay on their website!

I also saw that there will be the first Bristol Craft Beer Festival in September (2nd until 4th). Organised by the very popular London Craft Beer Festival, they decided to have it in the big venue “Motion”, in Bristol. More than 40 breweries will participate and it should be a very nice event! More information to come…